Author: Kafian Jirair

NOBODY WORRIES ABOUT GAS PIPELINE

Lragir, Armenia
Oct 19 2006

President Robert Kocharyan conducted the October 19 meeting of the
NKR government and did not give any explanation to the members of
government and the other high-ranking officials on the fate of the
Iran-Armenia gas pipeline, said the minister of trade and economic
development Karen Chishmarityan. By the way, the media have reported
recently that the 40-km section of the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline was
sold to the Russians secretly from the public. According to Karen
Chishmarityan, none of the high-ranking officials inquired about the
fate of the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline.

In today’s meeting the government approved the priority of innovative
activities. It was decided to declare development of infrastructures
for innovative activities, the search for alternative sources of
energy, development of hi-tech and the use of sustainable technologies.

Karen Chishmarityan did not point to numbers, but he said recently the
Armenal factory and several other industries have been modernized. He
did not know how much the companies spent on innovations, who get
subsidy for gas, but he said something was done in the cement factory
of Hrazdan.

International Herald Tribune, France
Oct 19 2006

Mind your own business, France
Suat Kiniklioglu International Herald Tribune

Published: October 19, 2006

ANKARA Turkey is in an uproar. Turks are reacting bitterly to the
tactlessness of the French National Assembly in passing a bill that
would criminalize "denial" of the Armenian "genocide."

Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy of France is right: The vote
is seen as an unfriendly gesture by a vast majority of the Turkish
people. We are dismayed by the ease with which French lawmakers seem
willing to jeopardize relations between France and Turkey dating from
the 16th century.

What puzzles us even more is that of all countries, France – seen by
us as the symbol of civil liberties and free speech – would become
hostage to a small, if influential, lobby that exploits every electoral
opportunity to advance its narrow agenda.

Lawmakers are not historians and their attempt to establish facts about
an extremely sensitive and complicated historic event is misguided
at best. Further, the proposed bill represents a blow to freedom
of expression at a time when European Union member states regularly
lecture Ankara on legislation they view as curtailing free speech.

Both on grounds of substance and process, the National Assembly’s
action is deeply offensive and counterproductive. That is why the EU
enlargement commissioner, Olli Rehn, and 16 prominent French historians
opposed the bill.

Many Turks interpret the National Assembly’s action as not just an
attempt to appease an active lobby, but also as a populist appeal to
the majority of the French public opposed to Turkish membership in
the European Union.

In the run-up to what promises to be a very competitive presidential
race next spring, both the French left and right seem ill disposed
toward a predominantly Muslim country interested in EU membership.

Bound legally by the EU Council’s decision to start accession
negotiations with Turkey, French lawmakers may hope to provoke an
already unsettled Turkey to quit the negotiations by touching a
sensitive nerve. Whether such irresponsible behavior hinders efforts
to heal the wounds of World War I and the tragedy of Ottoman Armenians
seems to be lost on them.

Ironically, this ill-considered action comes at a time when Turkey’s
domestic debate on the Armenian issue is more open than at any time
in the past. Turks on both sides of the issue are intensely discussing
what happened in 1915-1916 and whether it can be defined as genocide.

Last year, in an unprecedented move, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan suggested that Turkey and Armenia set up a joint commission of
historians to determine whether the events of 1915-1916 constituted
genocide. The offer was rejected by Armenia. Turkey also organized
its first international conference on the Armenian issue with Armenian
historians last year. Furthermore, Turkey’s determination to join the
EU provides ongoing impetus for this healthy process of reconciliation
to continue.

Turkish-Armenian reconciliation cannot be facilitated by laws passed
in foreign parliaments. Such moves only help those who thrive on the
continuation of the impasse between Turks and Armenians.

As tempting as gesture politics may be for French politicians, any
genuine effort at reconciliation must be based on the recognition
that both Armenians and Turks suffered immensely during the fateful
years of World War I. To move forward, the focus must be broadened
to include common losses and experiences during this period, rather
than limited to the question of whether the events of 1915-1916 can
be qualified as genocide. Context is critical.

Having Turkey as a member in the EU is both in Europe’s and Armenia’s
interest. Provoking Turkey on a sensitive issue only serves to further
alienate a country whose destiny will have a major impact on the
greater Europe of which Armenia is also part.

As the British Armenian historian Ara Sarafian eloquently noted,
the ultimate irony is that France, which has not faced up to its own
genocidal past, dares to pass legislation on Turkey’s past.

Thankfully our lawmakers are unlikely to follow that path. After all,
we want to remain true to the ideals of Rousseau, Voltaire and the
French encyclopedists who inspired us and the European Enlightenment.

Suat Kiniklioglu is director of the Ankara office of the German
Marshall Fund of the United States.
ANKARA Turkey is in an uproar. Turks are reacting bitterly to the
tactlessness of the French National Assembly in passing a bill that
would criminalize "denial" of the Armenian "genocide."

Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy of France is right: The vote
is seen as an unfriendly gesture by a vast majority of the Turkish
people. We are dismayed by the ease with which French lawmakers seem
willing to jeopardize relations between France and Turkey dating from
the 16th century.

What puzzles us even more is that of all countries, France – seen by
us as the symbol of civil liberties and free speech – would become
hostage to a small, if influential, lobby that exploits every electoral
opportunity to advance its narrow agenda.

Lawmakers are not historians and their attempt to establish facts about
an extremely sensitive and complicated historic event is misguided
at best. Further, the proposed bill represents a blow to freedom
of expression at a time when European Union member states regularly
lecture Ankara on legislation they view as curtailing free speech.

Both on grounds of substance and process, the National Assembly’s
action is deeply offensive and counterproductive. That is why the EU
enlargement commissioner, Olli Rehn, and 16 prominent French historians
opposed the bill.

Many Turks interpret the National Assembly’s action as not just an
attempt to appease an active lobby, but also as a populist appeal to
the majority of the French public opposed to Turkish membership in
the European Union.

In the run-up to what promises to be a very competitive presidential
race next spring, both the French left and right seem ill disposed
toward a predominantly Muslim country interested in EU membership.

Bound legally by the EU Council’s decision to start accession
negotiations with Turkey, French lawmakers may hope to provoke an
already unsettled Turkey to quit the negotiations by touching a
sensitive nerve. Whether such irresponsible behavior hinders efforts
to heal the wounds of World War I and the tragedy of Ottoman Armenians
seems to be lost on them.

Ironically, this ill-considered action comes at a time when Turkey’s
domestic debate on the Armenian issue is more open than at any time
in the past. Turks on both sides of the issue are intensely discussing
what happened in 1915-1916 and whether it can be defined as genocide.

Last year, in an unprecedented move, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan suggested that Turkey and Armenia set up a joint commission of
historians to determine whether the events of 1915-1916 constituted
genocide. The offer was rejected by Armenia. Turkey also organized
its first international conference on the Armenian issue with Armenian
historians last year. Furthermore, Turkey’s determination to join the
EU provides ongoing impetus for this healthy process of reconciliation
to continue.

Turkish-Armenian reconciliation cannot be facilitated by laws passed
in foreign parliaments. Such moves only help those who thrive on the
continuation of the impasse between Turks and Armenians.

As tempting as gesture politics may be for French politicians, any
genuine effort at reconciliation must be based on the recognition
that both Armenians and Turks suffered immensely during the fateful
years of World War I. To move forward, the focus must be broadened
to include common losses and experiences during this period, rather
than limited to the question of whether the events of 1915-1916 can
be qualified as genocide. Context is critical.

Having Turkey as a member in the EU is both in Europe’s and Armenia’s
interest. Provoking Turkey on a sensitive issue only serves to further
alienate a country whose destiny will have a major impact on the
greater Europe of which Armenia is also part.

As the British Armenian historian Ara Sarafian eloquently noted,
the ultimate irony is that France, which has not faced up to its own
genocidal past, dares to pass legislation on Turkey’s past.

Thankfully our lawmakers are unlikely to follow that path. After all,
we want to remain true to the ideals of Rousseau, Voltaire and the
French encyclopedists who inspired us and the European Enlightenment.

Suat Kiniklioglu is director of the Ankara office of the German
Marshall Fund of the United States.

ISTANBUL – Turkish Daily News

DYP protests against France
Thursday, October 19, 2006

The opposition True Path Party’s (DYP) Istanbul branch protested
yesterday against the approval by the French National Assembly of a
bill that makes denial of the alleged Armenian genocide a crime.

Nearly 50 DYP members who gathered in Taksim Square unfurled a huge
Turkish flag and marched to the French Consulate General on Ýstiklâl
Avenue. After performing the Turkish national anthem, DYP Istanbul
Province Chairman Faik Ýcmeli made a speech and said: "This bill,
which ignores freedom of thought and expression, shows France’s
double standards. We condemn France’s attitude. If this decision is
not rectified, France will suffer from it."

The protest took place amid tight security measures and ended after the
group members laid a black wreath in front of the consulate general.

–Boundary_(ID_+nGLDMNcbd4Oustrjx99fA)–

Air pollution is out of politics
19.10.2006 16:56

Public Radio, Armenia
Oct 19 2006

The forum on innovative approaches to challenges of climatic changes
in the world, organized by Steady Development Commission of the CoE
Congress, opened in Yerevan today. President of the Commission Gaye
Doghanoghlu noted in her opening speech that in 100 years the climatic
changes in the world connected with the increase of toxic emissions
in the atmosphere can lead to disastrous and irretrievable results,
and its prevention should start today.

"The air pollution issue is the first for all humanity. It is out
of politics and society, since it relates to all and everyone,"
Doghanoghlu said, adding those guilty of air pollution – the countries
with developed and developing industry – should address the issue.

In Doghanoghlu’s words, the solution of the issue demands a united and
complex approach. Certain tasks should be put before all states – from
air pollution control to industry modernization and decrease of toxic
emissions. "We should study the experience of other countries, those
who have achieved certain success in this sphere," Doghanoghlu noted.

AZERBAIJAN TO COUNTER ARMENIAN DIASPORA

Agence France Presse — English
October 17, 2006 Tuesday

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev announced Tuesday a campaign to
counter the influence of the Armenian diaspora, a major backer of
ethnic-Armenian separatists in the disputed Nagorny Karabakh region.

Aliyev said his oil-rich ex-Soviet republic was opening embassies
and consulates in parts of the world where the Armenian diaspora was
especially influential.

"It’s no secret that California is a state with a large Armenian
population. We opened a consulate general (in Los Angeles) to be
there and to fight the Armenian lobby," Aliyev said in an interview
with Arabic network Al-Jazeera, a transcript of which was published
by Azerbaijan’s state news agency Azertaj.

Aliyev said his country planned to open an embassy in Argentina,
where the Armenian lobby "is strongest among Latin American nations."

"One might ask, ‘Why open an embassy in a country with which we have
no serious links.’ But we’re opening an embassy to fight the Armenian
lobby on its own turf," Aliyev said.

Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in a territorial dispute
over the Nagorny Karabakh ethnic-Armenian enclave since before the
break-up of the Soviet Union.

Azerbaijan lost control of the territory and seven surrounding regions
during a war in the early 1990s, but Karabakh’s status has yet to be
settled. Diaspora Armenians are key to financing the rebel government
controlling the enclave.

The world-wide Armenian diaspora has numbered in the millions since
Armenians were forced out of Ottoman Turkey in a series of massacres
and forced marches during World War I.

Aliyev said Azerbaijan’s new oil wealth gave it a chance to outweigh
ethnic-Armenians’ influence abroad.

"What is attractive about Armenia…? Only the fact that it has a
rich diaspora that influences the policies of various countries,"
Aliyev said.

"Azerbaijan is a country that will supply Europe and world markets
with energy resources. Imagine Azerbaijan on one side of the scale
and Armenia on the other."

TURKEY : CONSUMERS GIVE COLD SHOULDER TO FRENCH PRODUCTS

Fibre2fashion.com, India
Oct 17 2006

Following French parliament’s decision to pass the Armenian bill,
some Turkish consumers are refusing to buy products manufactured by
the French.

Consumer associations have launched a boycott of French goods while
some chain stores are putting labels on French goods to inform
consumers of their French origin.

Afra Shopping Center, a supermarket chain operating in Konya has
labeled 100 items stating them to be French products.

French store Carrefour, a partnership in Turkey with Sabanci Holdings,
has been receiving fewer customers everyday.

A 30 percent decrease in sales of total oil was observed.

Kiler Retail Chain, with 130 stores in Turkey, has shunned sales
of French products, cancelled its contracts with Danone and French
cosmetics companies and removed other French goods from their shelves.

Clothing company LC Waikiki announced that it wasn’t French as it had
been purchased from French DDKA Company by Tema Textile Corporation
in 1997, hence it is Turkish.

Regular customers of Danone products have been returning them after
learning that Danone was a French company.

POPE TO VISIT TURKEY

PanARMENIAN.Net
16.10.2006 18:15 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Vatican on Monday officially confirmed that Pope
Benedict XVI will visit Turkey at the end of November, a trip that
had been put into doubt by Muslim anger over controversial comments
he made about Islam. The confirmation of the Nov 28-Dec 1 trip to
the predominantly Muslim nation came in an advisory to journalists on
accreditation and a separate announcement that he was making the trip
at the invitation of President Ahmet Necdet Sezer. The main purpose
of the visit is to meet in Istanbul — the former Constantinople —
with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual head of the world’s
Orthodox Christians. It should be noted that the sharp statements of
the Pope aroused a wave of indignation within the Muslim world and his
visit to Turkey remained undecided during the recent several weeks,
reports Reuters.

FAMOUS SINGER DIES IN CAR ACCIDENT IN ARMENIA

AZG Armenian Daily
17/10/2006

Obituary

Famous singer Vardouhi Vardanian died in car accident.

The accident happened at about 2:30 PM on 17 km of Sevan-Martouni-Getap
highway. The Press office of RA Police informed that the singer’s
car BWM 520 had ridden out of the highway and turned over. Two other
passengers had been in the car, Arman Khachatrian(born in 1977),
and Yeghisheh Gertsian (born in 1974) had been taken to the hospital
with heavy injures.

IF I LIE, THEN PUT ME IN THE DOCK
By Robert Fisk

Gulf Times, Qatar
The Independent
Oct 16 2006

THIS has been a bad week for Holocaust deniers. I’m talking about
those who wilfully lie about the 1915 genocide of 1.5mn Armenian
Christians by the Ottoman Turks.

On Thursday, France’s lower house of parliament approved a Bill
making it a crime to deny that Armenians suffered genocide. And,
within an hour, Turkey’s most celebrated writer, Orhan Pamuk – only
recently cleared by a Turkish court for insulting "Turkishness" (sic)
by telling a Swiss newspaper that nobody in Turkey dared mention the
Armenian massacres – won the Nobel Prize for Literature. In the mass
graves below the deserts of Syria and beneath the soil of southern
Turkey, a few souls may have been comforted.

While Turkey continues to blather on about its innocence – the
systematic killing of hundreds of thousands of male Armenians and of
their gang-raped women is supposed to be the sad result of "civil war"
– Armenian historians such as Vahakn Dadrian continue to unearth new
evidence of the premeditated Holocaust (and, yes, it will deserve its
capital H since it was the direct precursor of the Jewish Holocaust,
some of whose Nazi architects were in Turkey in 1915) with all the
energy of a gravedigger.

Armenian victims were killed with daggers, swords, hammers and axes to
save ammunition. Massive drowning operations were carried out in the
Black Sea and the Euphrates rivers – mostly of women and children,
so many that the Euphrates became clogged with corpses and changed
its course for up to half a mile.

But Dadrian, who speaks and reads Turkish fluently, has now discovered
that tens of thousands of Armenians were also burned alive in haylofts.

He has produced an affidavit to the Turkish court martial that
briefly pursued the Turkish mass murderers after the First World War,
a document written by General Mehmet Vehip Pasha, commander of the
Turkish Third Army. He testified that, when he visited the Armenian
village of Chourig (it means "little water" in Armenian), he found
all the houses packed with burned human skeletons, so tightly packed
that all were standing upright.

"In all the history of Islam," General Vehip wrote, "it is not possible
to find any parallel to such savagery." The Armenian Holocaust, now so
"unmentionable" in Turkey, was no secret to the country’s population
in 1918. Millions of Muslim Turks had witnessed the mass deportation
of Armenians three years earlier – a few, with infinite courage,
protected Armenian neighbours and friends at the risk of the lives
of their own Muslim families – and, on October 19 1918, Ahmed Riza,
the elected president of the Turkish senate and a former supporter
of the Young Turk leaders who committed the genocide, stated in his
inaugural speech: "Let’s face it, we Turks savagely (‘vahshiane’
in Turkish) killed off the Armenians." Dadrian has detailed how two
parallel sets of orders were issued, Nazi-style, by Turkish interior
minister Talat Pasha. One set solicitously ordered the provision of
bread, olives and protection for Armenian deportees but a parallel
set instructed Turkish officials to "proceed with your mission" as
soon as the deportee convoys were far enough away from population
centres for there to be few witnesses to murder.

As Turkish senator Reshid Akif Pasha testified on November 19 1918:
"The ‘mission’ in the circular was: to attack the convoys and massacre
the population… I am ashamed as a Muslim, I am ashamed as an Ottoman
statesman. What a stain on the reputation of the Ottoman Empire,
these criminal people…"

How extraordinary that Turkish dignitaries could speak such truths
in 1918, could fully admit in their own parliament to the genocide
of the Armenians and could read editorials in Turkish newspapers of
the great crimes committed against this Christian people. Yet how
much more extraordinary that their successors today maintain that
all of this is a myth, that anyone who says in present-day Istanbul
what the men of 1918 admitted can find themselves facing prosecution
under the notorious Law 301 for "defaming" Turkey.

I’m not sure that Holocaust deniers – of the anti-Armenian or
anti-Semitic variety – should be taken to court for their rantings.

David Irving is a particularly unpleasant "martyr" for freedom of
speech and I am not at all certain that Bernard Lewis’s one-franc fine
by a French court for denying the Armenian genocide in a November
1993 Le Monde article did anything more than give publicity to an
elderly historian whose work deteriorates with the years.

But it’s gratifying to find French President Jacques Chirac and his
interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy have both announced that Turkey
will have to recognise the Armenian death as genocide before it is
allowed to join the European Union

True, France has a powerful half million-strong Armenian community.

But, typically, no such courage has been demonstrated by Britain’s
Tony Blair, nor by the EU itself, which gutlessly and childishly
commented that the new French Bill, if passed by the senate in Paris,
will "prohibit dialogue" which is necessary for reconciliation between
Turkey and modern-day Armenia.

What is the subtext of this, I wonder? No more talk of the Jewish
Holocaust lest we hinder "reconciliation" between Germany and the
Jews of Europe?

But, suddenly, last week, those Armenian mass graves opened up before
my own eyes. Next month, my Turkish publishers are producing my book,
The Great War for Civilisation, in the Turkish language, complete with
its long chapter on the Armenian genocide entitled The First Holocaust.

On Thursday, I received a fax from Agora Books in Istanbul. Their
lawyers, it said, believed it "very likely that they will be sued under
Law 301" – which forbids the defaming of Turkey and which right-wing
lawyers tried to use against Pamuk – but that, as a foreigner, I
would be "out of reach". However, if I wished, I could apply to the
court to be included in any Turkish trial.

Personally, I doubt if the Holocaust deniers of Turkey will dare to
touch us. But, if they try, it will be an honour to stand in the dock
with my Turkish publishers, to denounce a genocide which even Mustafa
Kamel Ataturk, founder of the modern Turkish state, condemned.

AGAINST STATE-BACKED TRUTHS
By The Crimson Staff

Harvard Crimson, MA
Oct 16 2006

The French bill that criminalizes Armenian genocide should not
become law

Last Thursday, the French parliament exacerbated existing tensions
between European states and Turkey, which is in talks to join the
European Union. In an overwhelming 109-19 vote, the lower chamber of
the French National Assembly unwisely passed a bill to criminalize
the denial of the 1915 genocide of Armenians on Turkish soil. The
French Senate and President have the chance to bury the bill, and we
hope they take it.

Unsurprisingly, the Turkish government reacted swiftly against
this bill, as have Turkish emigrants all over Europe. Some Turkish
parliament members proposed a law criminalizing the denial of the
French colonial genocide of Algerians (historians prefer to deem it
colonial warfare). In France this weekend, vandals defaced one of
the many existing monuments to the massacred Armenians.

These actions must be understood in a larger context. Under the
proposed French bill, Armenian genocide deniers would face fines and
prison terms equivalent to those mandated by anti-Holocaust-denying
laws in some central European nations. Although the motivations
for these laws may have been understandable in the post-war era,
governments should not impose their version of the truth over their
citizens.

The French bill is well intentioned; its goal is to force Turkey to
confront the atrocities committed by the ruling Committee for Union
and Progress during World War I. But we cannot help but be skeptical
of any state trying to impose its version of history and truth.

States should simply avoid this business. Thus, our opposition extends
beyond the French bill to the laws like those in Germany, Poland,
Austria, and Switzerland which criminalize Holocaust denial.

France’s passage of this bill would be an ironic parallel to the
circumstances in Turkey, which tried Orhan Pamuk, this year’s
Nobel laureate for literature, for speaking about the Armenian
genocide-which violates Article 301 of the Turkish penal code. In
defending free speech, even the expatriate Pamuk spoke against the
French bill. A free market of ideas, not laws imposed by the state,
should establish what is true.